Introducing our newest project

Our newest project is the this 1970 Beetle. It is a special build because this was the owners very first car, bought new when he turned 16. Although it hasnt been in any major accidents, rust has gotten hold of this little bug in a few spots. We will be repairing the rusty areas and freshening up the outside and inside with new paint, bright work, interior and suspension. The engine had a recent check up and got a good bill of health. As you can see we got right to work disassembling the car. We did get quite a bit apart on it and the rest will be apart next week.  We will then start the rust repair and stripping off the old paint. This will be a bone stock restoration back to the factory color. Stay tuned to see the progress.

Yo Holmes, to Bel-Air

Here we have a beautiful 1957 Chevy Bel-Air in the shop to get a new lease on life. We started by disassembling the front end and sending all of the parts out for stripping. Once back from the blasters, Jordan got to work sanding all of the parts prepping them for primer. Since this is an extremely important step, extra time was taken to be sure the metal was as clean as possible. Today we hung up all the parts and prepped them for PPG’s DP epoxy primer and applied 2 good coats. Next step will be to perform any metal work that needs to be done and start straightening the panels. The inner panels and fresh air vents will be prepped for paint since they wont really need any body work. Stay tuned.

Ghia time

Here we have an update on the Ghia. Although its not progressing as much as I’d like it is moving. I have brought in a guy to help out with some welding since our collision business has been so heavy this past bit. We do have quite a bit of welding wrapped up and we have also been doing some body work. Here you can see the work on the quarters. The area on the left is where that huge patch of rust was cut out. We are now welding up the front end and a small patch is still left in the left quarter. We plan on spending a few hours on it this weekend to play a little catch up.

From one Ghia to another

We have been working a little behind the scenes on the this Ghia for the past few weeks. We have been dressing up some welds, welding up a few more places that we have found and doing some rust preventative things on areas that are already welded. We do have a few more little places to weld but for the most part that is done. Today we removed the doors and started blocking them. We also started blocking out the body where the new panels have been patched in. Tomorrow we will continue the blocking and start repairing the body.

Holes

This awesome ’63 Grand Prix is in the shop to get a couple of patches replaced in the quarters. Someone did a wonderful job restoring this car several years ago but like everything, nothing lasts forever. We will be fixing up a few places and painting the bad places back up nice and shiny to keep this lead sled on the road for a few more years.

Rocker be gone

Today I spent the day removing the old rusty rocker and inner structure. First thing we did was weld in some supports to keep the body where its supposed to be. We then started cutting out the large chunks of rusty metal. Once those were out of the way, we carefully removed the rest of the metal where it attaches to the A post and B post. Once all the old stuff was out of the way, we started fitting the new panels. After a little of finagling we got things in and looking pretty good. We still have some fine tuning to do before we bring out the welder but we are very pleased with the progress today.

Back on the Ghia

After way too long, we were able to get back on the Ghia this week. No major accomplishments here but we did get some work done. There are several places that have to be cut out and new metal put back in because the metal is thin in some areas and has a few small pinholes. We were also planning on cutting the left rocker off to start fitting in the left heater channel and outer sheet metal but tubing we need to brace everything up didnt come in. We hope to get that in next week so we can start that up. We did get about 10 or so places welded up and a few little patches in and some made to keep things moving. We have been very blessed with lots of collision work over the past few months but unfortunately that takes our time away from these more fun projects. Our many thanks to the owner for her patients. We now have a full crew and you will be seeing more posts on this one in the weeks to come.

Another rust repair

Yesterday we repaired another rust spot on an Chevy truck. We started by grinding out the rust until we found good metal. We then cut out what was bad then made a patch to fit the hole. We then carefully weleded in the patch being careful not to over heat and warp the surrounding metal. Once that was done we ground down the welds and filled the are with All Metal. Once that was dry, we smoothed that up and finished off the repair with body filler then primer. This morning the primer area was sanded and prepped for paint. We were able to get it painted today so look for those pictures tomorrow.

Chevy’s ready

The rust on this Chevy is now a thing of the past. The repair turned out really nice. Here are the images from its time in the paint booth. You can see the sealer on the repaired area in the first picture followed by the base coat then the clear coat. The last image shows the finished product with a new pin stripe and a new Z71 decal.